1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to communication infrastructures, and, more particularly, to switching node operations in a packet switched communication network.
2. Related Art
Internet has rapidly become widespread among population because of its ability to traffic audio, video, data packets at increased speeds. Internet infrastructure typically includes network devices such as routers, switches, packet switched exchanges, access points and Internet service provider's networks (ISPN), Internet communication pathways and end point devices. The end point devices include personal or laptop computers, servers, set top boxes, handheld data/communication devices and other client devices, for example. All these end point devices residing in remote locations exchange audio, video and data packets use any available Internet communication pathway.
Various remote and local services relating to communicated data are available to conventional end-point devices. Typically, an end-point device analyzes received data to determine if such services are warranted. Before performing such analysis on packetized, received data, the end-point device first reconstructs the packets (desegments) and stores the reconstructed data locally. If analysis of the reconstructed data so indicates, the end-point device will deliver the reconstructed data to the local or remote service—a process that often requires resegmentation and retransmission (for a remote service). This process often results in wasted communication, local storage, local processing and routing infrastructure resources. Moreover, even if the end-point device should perform such analysis and delivery, it need not do so to thwart a highly desired service. This applies to both source and destination end-point devices, which may be, for example, client devices and servers.
Typically, the exchange of audio, video and data packets via the Internet happens without any internal control over the packets, other than the network devices routing the packets from a source end point device to one or more destination end point devices. In other words, typical packet flow in an Internet infrastructure is unrestrained. Though such free flow of packets is usually beneficial, some packets, inadvertently or deliberately, may contain disruptive content (e.g., virus, worms or other malware), unauthorized content (e.g., pirated copies of video, audio, text or program code), unwanted content (e.g., pornography or adult themes), or unsuitable content (e.g., content unlikely to benefit a particular region because of customs, regional constraints, or language limitations).
Conventional end point devices have the burden of restraining presentation or execution of such disruptive, unauthorized, unwanted, and unsuitable content. Often, however, such end point device is incapable of doing so. For example, even with malware protection software active, end point devices are often infected. With blocking software installed, pornography is still displayed to children. Other types of filters blocking such types of content also fail with undesirable results.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art through comparison of such systems with the present invention.